Oak and Cedar Co-create Space for Community

 

A big, beautiful Red Oak tree graces the park beside my home.  Its strong limbs stretch out sideways since there are no other trees close by.  One of its lower limbs used to reach across the roadway until it was sawed off by a township worker.  No doubt some safety or liability concern was responsible for that decision.  To me, this looked like an amputation and I grieved.  The Oak healed the scar and carried on growing.  I think of this as a mature tree but in terms of an Oak’s long lifespan it is perhaps a young adult producing hundreds of brown acorns every summer.  It is a friend to the squirrels, birds, insects and other life forms as well as to me.

They say that an Oak’s roots are the same size as the branches that form the canopy.  The roots need to be very strong to anchor this tree whose wood is dense and heavy.   I stand at the edge of the park and try to imagine that in my mind’s eye.  I try to get a sense of what is beneath my feet and where the roots go.  Perhaps they cross under the road that the branch once reached over.  It is all there, the visible and the hidden if I look.

Oak was sacred to my ancient ancestors the Celts.  It was Britain’s World Tree that connected the Lowerworld, home of the ancestors with the Upperworld that holds embryonic possibilities.  It connected the past, present and future for the humans who lived in between these worlds.  The Ogham letter for Oak or Duir was the letter D.  Duir was the precursor of the English word door and it lent its name to the name Druid as they met in sacred Oak groves.  Druid means “one with the wisdom of the Oak” (Danu Forest).  A Druidic legend says that the tree is the “beating heart of the planet” and that the time will come when people will replant the sacred Oak groves beginning in County Clare, Ireland (Diana Beresford-Krueger).

Oak represents inner strength, endurance, courage and self-determination (Glennie Kindred) as well as a doorway to self knowledge (Sharlyn Hidalgo).

Oak was the favoured wood for shipbuilding because it is strong and long lasting. In fact, it was so popular that almost all of the British Oak trees were cut down until finally some of them became protected by law in the UK.  It was Oak trees, made into ships, that allowed the British to travel all over the world, colonizing as they went.

Just outside of the dripline of Red Oak in the park is the frame for a community garden made of Eastern White Cedar which is sacred to the Anishinaabeg.  The garden is circular with a gate on the Eastern side which is the direction from  which the Anishinaabeg enter circles.  Our community had a Planting Celebration this past Saturday, the traditional weekend for planting in this part of the world.  We planted the Four Sacred Medicines of the Anishinaabeg; tobacco, cedar, sage and sweetgrass as well as the Three Sisters (corn, bean and squash) from Haudenosaunee and Wendat traditions.  Indigenous Drumming and Knowledge Sharing opened the space.  Then children and adults joined together to plant the vegetables, flowers and seeds that had been donated.  Local musicians provided music that connected everyone while the planting and watering took place and then food was shared.

Our goal is to bring people together, to grow community as we grow plants.  These elder brothers and sisters, the plants can teach us how to grow community.  We are bringing together the two world views of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people here in Ontario, Canada.  We are looking for common ground, Mother Earth, to be exact.

The tall Oak and the young Cedar remind us of our own roots and responsibilities to protect life together.  Their co-created presence will teach us how to co-create the future that we wish for.  And perhaps Oak will still remember that it is a doorway for those of British heritage when we come knocking.

 

The Gift of Being

 

In his tiny square room, we sit together quietly,

My dad and I.

He, slumped to the left in his reclining wheelchair

I, perched uncomfortably on the side of his bed.

The nursing home took away the chair for visitors

During the first year of the pandemic.

It never came back.

 

Almost ninety-five, he needs care

And help, to eat and dress and move.

His drinking fluids are thickened now

And spooned into his mouth.

The nurse gives me some thick fruit punch

In a plastic cup with a spoon

To “see if you can get some into him”.

He opens his mouth and I carefully spoon some in.

I am reminded of feeding my children

As babies.

It feels strangely familiar this resurrected skill.

This, I know how to do.

 

It is May and so his nose is running like a tap.

I wipe it and tell him to blow and he does.

I wait, spoon topped up, for him

To open his mouth once again.

The angle is wrong and red,

Thickened juice slides onto his shirt.

I wipe it up with large paper wipes

And wait again for another chance

To keep him hydrated.

 

I remember being told by my mother, that as a baby

I ate happily when he fed me.

But when my anxious first-time mother tried,

I vomited in a way she described as projectile.

My dad had a baby sister as a boy,

So perhaps he too resurrected the skill

While my mother was out of her depth.

I still can’t eat when I am anxious.

 

My dad fed me and now I feed him.

Reciprocity after more than six decades.

He played the piano to put me to sleep

And now I play him music on my iPod

To wake up his brain and bring some

Pleasure, perhaps some remembrance.

He played me the record, Peter and the Wolf

When I was a child and today

I played it for him on my iPod,

In this tiny room at the end of the hall.

 

Not everyone gets to experience

This kind of reciprocity,

This kind of gentle acceptance

Of life’s circle.

There is gift here, I sense it.

There is not much to do anymore

For this man who did so much.

I sit with him calmly, just being

Now that the doing is done,

In a timeless in-between space

With someone I have known

My entire life.

There is gift here, I feel the sacredness

Of just being.

Re-membering Beltane

 

My ancient ancestors, the Celts, separated the year into two halves.  The dark half began at Samhain, today’s November 1^st.  The light followed the dark in the Celtic world and the light half of the year began at Beltane, today’s May 1^st.  At Beltane, a Maypole made of Oak and decorated with white Hawthorn flowers would be danced around as part of the celebration of fertility that spring brings.  My ancestors were connected to the land and the movement of the sun and moon.  Everything had spirit or anam that supported them as anam cara.

Gradually that way of life was lost to the introduction and later domination of Christianity that demanded allegiance to a sky God only.  The old ways were then linked by the Church to the devil and to witches in order to convince people to let them go. During the Industrial Revolution, most people moved away from the land and into the cities to find work. My ancestors were among those who were drawn to the cotton mills of Lancashire from Ireland, Yorkshire and the south of England.

Society in Britain was run by men who were supposed to be rational.  Emotions were relegated to women who were seen as lesser beings.  Through the development of technology for industry and for weapons, this small island then set out to conquer the world and form the British Empire.  Technology allowed those with it, to subdue and dominate those without it. It was a great benefit to the men who forged this plan, to not pay attention to their emotions.  It is much easier to do harm to other life if you just stay in your head.  Things such as imagination were soon relegated to the least of beings, children.  Imagination became synonymous with things that were fanciful and not true such as the anam of everything.

This is one explanation for how we got to where we are today.  Being cut off from the Earth, from our emotions and from the power of imagination we now find ourselves on the brink of a myriad of bad things.  Luckily there are a lot of us and many healing paths forward once we let go of the belief in separation and embrace the reality of connection.

Sharp-lobed Hepatica flowers with last year's weathered leaves.

Here in Ontario a few days before Beltane, the Hawthorns are still bare.  There are no flowers to adorn a Maypole.  But, the days are getting longer and the sun warmer.  In the forest that I walk in, the first flowers to emerge from the brown forest floor are the Sharp-lobed Hepatica.  The bright white flowers rise up first in the midst of their weathered leaves from last year.  Later, the new bright green leaves will emerge.  Last year, there were only a few Hepatica clumps but due to logging and caterpillars eating the remaining canopy, more light than usual flooded the forest last summer and now Hepatica is everywhere.  They line the trail like landing lights on a runway, showing me the way.  Delicate and hardy, they are my Hawthorn flowers ushering me into the light time of year.

Wild Leek leaves with a few Hepatica flowers

Mixed in with them are the rich green Wild Leek leaves that grow taller each day.  I pick a few to take home and cook as my celebration feast to welcome spring and to embody the life that it brings.  The Leeks are managing to grow despite the branches that the loggers left behind. Their intense green is in sharp contrast to the dead grey branches and stumps that still lay like bleached bones throughout the woodland.

Basal leaves of Mullein

Most surprisingly though are the Mullein plants that are growing in the forest.  Usually, Mullein is an edge dweller which you find at the side of the road or trails, often growing in poor soil or gravel.  Somehow, it has found its way into the forest and the added sunshine from last year has allowed it to prosper.  The soft woolly leaves fan out in a basal fashion that reminds me of a lotus.  Mullein is the first plant that I remember communicating with as a child.  I was sure that it must be a healing plant because it was so soft and fuzzy.  It felt kind and nurturing to me.  I asked my mother what it was used for but she didn’t know and called it a weed.  I later learned that it did in fact have medicinal uses.  More recently, I was taught by an Elder on a nearby First Nation that they used Mullein for many purposes.  Now, in my more senior years, I see Mullein as my childhood mentor and evidence of my ability to listen to plants.

These three gentle spring plants tug at my ancestral memory.  They beckon to me to remember my connection to Earth and to her abundance.  They are my way-showers and companions.  They wake up my imagination and speak to me in that rich, liminal, imaginal place.  As I accept their invitation to connect, a new way of being can be imagined and a new way forward visualized.  My heart and my body have become my compass on this path as I seek to re-member what is in my genes, what is in my bones, what my ancestors know.

 

 

A Moment of Happiness

 

The cedars, sky trees, fill my window

Like a lacy curtain against the grey sky.

Their greenery gently waves In the breeze.

They look happy and relaxed or

Perhaps I feel happy and relaxed

As I watch them gently wave to me.

 

Suddenly a shaft of bright white sunlight

Streams down between them and me

So, they are lost to my view.

I can almost hear angelic singing

Just like in the movies and so

I smile and feel happiness flood me

 

From the eavestrough hangs a single

Large drop of water lit up like a crystal

I watch its bright descent past the window

And then another and another follow it.

Fire, water, earth and sky create

This living vision until another cloud passes

And it is gone.

Only its gift of happiness lingers.

 

If You Have Come Here to Help Me

 

Murri artist, activist and academic Lilla Watson is often credited with the quote, 

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” 

However, while Watson who is an Indigenous person from Australia spoke the quote at the 1985 United Nations Decade for Women Conference in Nairobi, she explained that this quote was co-created in the 1970’s by an Aboriginal Rights group in Queensland, Australia that she was a part of. This quote is used widely now in reference to Truth and Reconciliation work that is being done in Canada and in many other places as well.  And for good reason.  It goes to the heart of the dichotomy of us and them, the helpers and the helped.  It challenges the embedded notion of hierarchy and speaks to collective healing in which we all play a part.  It is a paradigm shifter.

As more Canadians become aware of the history of the land that is now called Canada and how this country was built on the dominance over, theft from, oppression of and exclusion of Indigenous Peoples whose ancestors have lived here since time immemorial, they want to do something to change the future.  After taking in some of the truth and processing the emotions to some extent they want to move to action.  They acknowledge their privilege and they want to help.  From a worldview based on hierarchy and a Christian theology, “helping” seems like the thing to “do”.  I too have asked the same much-asked question, “What can I do?”

So, what can we make of “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time”?  I have never met the people who created this quote and so I am guessing what they meant.  I am trying to understand it as a non-Indigenous person.  The first thing that comes to my mind is the embedded hierarchy in the notion of help.  From the abundance of privilege, helping can be very easy.  It can be an e-transfer. Helping can make people feel better because they have done something.  It is a good first step.  But when the help is given in isolation, the feeling better does not last.  We don't even know if it did any good.  It is certainly better than nothing but are we changed by the action? Are we likely to take another step?

I recently attended a Virtual Rally for Grassy Narrows First Nation (advertised above) who have been dealing with mercury polluted water in their territory for decades now due to the actions of a paper mill.  At the rally we heard from various speakers from Grassy and actor Adam Beach.  At one point, an energetic Jewish woman from SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice, surg.org ) which is self-described as “A home for white people working for justice”, asked for pledges to help Grassy using on-line polling and the force of her personality.  Thirty-five thousand dollars was pledged in about fifteen minutes and then instructions were given on how to transfer the money.  The money is earmarked to help people from Grassy Narrows get to Toronto this summer to gain more support for cleaning up the water from citizens and the provincial governement.  A social media blitz was also part of the rally since many voices together speak louder to politicians.  Later, a phone blitz was carried out.  A financial donation, a tweet, Facebook post or email and a phone call or two are all easy things to do.  The important thing was that we were doing them together to get the governments to clean up the water and to compensate everyone who has suffered at Grassy Narrows FN.  After all, the water is here for all of us and those yet to be born.  We have a responsibility to the water to reverse the damage done.  Thousands of people have benefitted from the paper mill through jobs, shareholding and all the paper we use and hundreds of people have suffered irreversible damage from the mercury.  We are all complicit in the dumping of mercury in some way.  This joint rally gave non-Indigenous people an opportunity to meet their responsibilities for reciprocity with the water and the people of Grassy.

 

The second question that springs to my mind comes from the idea of liberation.  If white people are the oppressors, then what do they need to be liberated from?  My parents emigrated to Turtle Island from England.  All non-Indigenous people have emigrated here from somewhere else in the last four hundred years.  There were reasons that they left the lands of their birth and came here hoping for something better.  Poverty, war, and persecution are probably in the top five reasons.  As I learn more about the history of England and Ireland where my ancestors are part of the very soil, I discover that it is a history of conquest and domination. Even the English language is a hodge podge of the words of the conquerors and the conquered.   Different nations over different times “ruled” those lands until they set out to “rule” the rest of the world.  My ancestors are made up of conquerors and the conquered.  And here in Canada, the oppressors. That is one story that my DNA would tell as well as being Celt, Old English, Viking, French and who knows what else.  I can only speak for myself but the sense of always waiting to be “conquered”, always looking for danger, lives and breathes in my nervous system.  That is the inherent problem in hierarchies.  People are trying to climb to the top which means unseating others while standing on the heads of those further below.  Just because this is all we have known and remembered doesn’t make it the best structure.  Liberation from this means working together, just as the quote suggests.

As I explore these ideas I am not suggesting that non-Indigenous people are suffering as much or more than Indigenous people in Canada.  We are likely not even aware that we are suffering, that we are not free, that our position of privilege is not good for anyone, including ourselves.  We are likely not aware of the ancient traumas that we carry around with us.  We are likely not aware of how much we can learn from Indigenous ways of knowing and wisdom.

It seems to me that when the traumas of Europe encountered the abundance of land, food and waters on Turtle Island, the traumas were not healed.  It wasn't as if we breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Now we can stop fighting.  There is enough for everyone here."  Instead the traumas morphed into greed and the accumulation of wealth into the hands of the few and destruction of our Mother Earth who offers so much. The fear-become-greed has led us to the brink of destruction.  No solutions that come out of this trauma are going to change things significantly.  Solutions that come from an Indigenous worldview in which the land, waters, air and all the forms of life are Sacred could change everything.  Perhaps, non-Indigenous people can be liberated from a self-destructive worldview as they work with Indigenous people.  It seems that this is what we are looking for as we come to grips with Climate Change.

Of course, this will take humility on the part of non-Indigenous people.  We will have to take ourselves off of the top of the hierarchical pyramid and stand in circle with those who were “below us”.  We will have to listen carefully, listen with our hearts, listen with our souls to what those we seek to “help” have to teach us.  Our theologies, theories and economies seem to have forgotten that all of life is Sacred.  How will we be liberated from these on our own?  In time?  Coming to understand that our liberations are bound together may open our ears, our minds, and our hearts.  And then we can truly work together to co-create a future that is good for all of us.  This is what we can do.

Drop Deep Into Earth

 

Drop Deep is a song by Lisa Turner and Resmiranda/Åsa Larsson that you can view at the link below.  It is really more a musical meditation that can transport you into deepening your relationship with Earth.

Below the You Tube video, Asa Larsson wrote:

A few years ago, my dear friend Lisa was going through a difficult time. She was tired to the bones but loved to get outdoors to spend time in nature. On one of those days, she got herself out in the beautiful landscape of Dartmoor and found a big rock where she could lay down and rest for a while. As she drifted away she could hear the rock whisper a lullaby. She wrote down the words, posted them in the sweet TreeSisters group where we both are members, I read it and fell in love. I put the words to music and now I hope the song can bring you a soothing moment of relaxation. ❤️

“Rest child, drop deep, drop deep into the leaf mould. Drop deep into the bracken into the mulch, down deep into the Earth. Rest child, drop deep, drop deep into the bones, to the last breath, to the wishes, to the hopes, to the prayer. Drop deep my child, drop deep and rest.” ~ Lisa Turner

You can learn more about TreeSisters here:

Take a few minutes right now to drop deep into Earth.

 

The Secret of Slush

 

In March, my partner and I like to hike the trail from Orillia to Midland and back.  We do this in segments.  Each day, we drive to a part of the trail, park the car, hike for a while and walk back.  Then the next day we do the next part of the trail.  In total this is about 97 km.  This has been a COVID adaptation and this will be the third March that we are walking it.  It gives us a doable mission for the day and a sense of accomplishment as we wait for the snow and ice to melt away.

On day one, the trail which is also used by snowmobilers, was hardpacked and solid.  It wasn’t slippery and walking was fairly easy.  On day two, however, the snow had started to melt and the snow pack collapsed with each step.  The snow was getting slushy and my winter boots weren’t as waterproof as I would have liked so my feet got wet.  The going was slow and all my attention was on my legs and feet.

It reasons that in the late winter/early spring there will be times when the snowpack melts and collapses with each step.   Afterall, this is a transition time between the seasons and transitions are always awkward and somewhat difficult.  This is what walking in a transition feels like; what was solid gives way with a jolt into something slushy and cold.  Winter boots are not gumboots and your feet get wet.  But gumboots don’t have enough tread to walk on the icy patches.  There is no perfect solution but to put plastic bags over my socks before I put them in the winter boots.  Not a very good fashion look but one I remember from my childhood.

As I trudged along, stepping, sinking, and extricating over and over again, it occurred to me, that this was the perfect metaphor for the world right now.  We are in a transition from one way of being to another.  So, the slush taught me, it stands to reason that navigating each day is going to be somewhat confusing and challenging.  

For example, I belong to a group of storytellers who used to hold events in person as did everyone else.  Two years of meeting on zoom and occasionally outside has given us the confidence to hold a larger event on-line.  As we struggle to learn registration platforms, ways to receive donations, ways to promote the event and the grand finale of the webinar platform for the final event, it has at times felt like trudging through a melting snowpack.  We have had to enlist the help of those who are more proficient in these platforms to sort out technical issues and climb a steep learning curve.  Only our belief in the importance of the event has kept us going for the past three months and the fact that we are each tackling different jobs that all require learning and then reporting back to the group.

On day three of our hike I was shocked to discover a bare trail of earth and limestone screening.  The earth had melted a little and I could feel the bounce of it under my feet which stayed dry.  I was so happy that I did a little dance.  The smell of the warming earth made me smile.  I walked along easily enjoying the give and take of the Earth beneath my feet.  It wasn't that the Earth felt solid but more that it felt responsive and rhythmic.

One of my jobs for the storytelling event was promotion.  I worked with one other member and we divided up the list that had been created when we applied for a grant months ago.  I made my own list of organizations and people that I am connected to.  The other member visited libraries and grocery stores as well as sending the press release to various media outlets.  We both noticed that people were keen to pass along the information.  There was an enthusiasm that was palpable.

Two years ago, we had planned the same event which featured an Elder from a local First Nation telling the story of a significant Indigenous archaeological site that is 5000 years old.  This was in March 2020 when everything suddenly shut down.  In June 2021, the unmarked graves of 215 children were discovered on the grounds of a former Indian Residential School in Kamloops, BC.  Shortly after that more graves were located with ground penetrating radar.  The numbers went up and up.  Many Canadians woke up, started to pay attention and learn more about the actual history of Canada.  And now, nine months later, many non-Indigenous people are looking for ways to honour that truth and ways to learn more.

As we sent out promotional materials, we heard back from people that they thought that this was a really important event.  They emailed friends, colleagues and shared posters.  They sent it out to their own networks.  I imagined the mycorrhizal filaments of the forest floor lighting up as the information spread across the lines of relationships that had grown during the two years of an ever-changing landscape.  What started off as two women promoting the event became dozens of people promoting the event.  The number of registrations kept going up in little bursts as new groups of relationships lit up.

The past two years have been hard slogging, a bit like walking in slush.  What felt solid repeatedly collapsed and people have become fatigued with the uncertainty.  But what planning this event has taught me is that the world has indeed changed over this transition.  And it will keep on changing, I am sure.

When we finally got to the on-line event, the Indigenous storytellers captured the audience’s attention and formed relationships across the interface of devices.  People reported feeling as though they were sitting with a group of friends.  People’s hearts and minds were touched by the ancient stories brought to life by the storytellers.  It was beautiful and humbling.  It felt like walking on the bare earth with the give and take of hearts beating together.